A Gods & Heroes State of the Republic post on the Gods and Heroes Website describes Heatwave Interactive's struggle to keep this "underfunded" MMOG in operation, with the game's associate producer saying it "did not perform at launch and has never even come close to paying for the cost of bringing it to market, much less the cost of keeping a team developing it for nine-months," adding: "To be honest, I’ve driven the company to the brink several times in an effort to keep the team together and to keep Gods and Heroes operating" (thanks The RPG Reporter). As a result, the game's development team is moving to other projects, and the dropping of subscription fees continues. Here's a bit:

To be honest, I’ve driven the company to the brink several times in an effort to keep the team together and to keep Gods and Heroes operating. However, at the end of 2011, it was clear that we would either have to let the team go, or find another way to keep them around. So, in order to keep the game alive and have a real chance at getting the free 2 play effort funded, we’ve reassigned the majority of the development team to new projects and made the service free for everyone.

The game will have to remain in this state until we find further funding. I hope my honesty and transparency about what has been going on with G&H communicates our commitment and belief in the project.

Turglar wrote on Mar 31, 2012, 19:53:I don't feel bad for these guys one bit. This turd of a game should have died with Perpetual. I actually tried the beta at one point and it felt like I was playing a MMO from 1997. The fact that they thought even one person would pay for this POS just shows how out of touch most MMO developers are with their genre's fans.

I felt the same way, I mean I don't wish ill fortune upon those but it was a game that was WAY too long to be brought to market. The stalled production just really worked against it, if they moved free to play to start it may have had more of a chance just it was coming out at a time when there were a lot of options and charging AAA prices for gameplay. Way to fail scenario. The unfortunate thing is it's kind of an interesting setting that's been under used and could have proven an interesting break (there was also the sci-fi Roman Empire game that I wanted to see but that one bit the dust and never made it to launch.) It's a tough market out there right now.

I don't feel bad for these guys one bit. This turd of a game should have died with Perpetual. I actually tried the beta at one point and it felt like I was playing a MMO from 1997. The fact that they thought even one person would pay for this POS just shows how out of touch most MMO developers are with their genre's fans.

Slashman wrote on Mar 31, 2012, 15:08:I don't get why developers are even still jumping into this market.

Unless you've made a successful subscription-based MMO before, the odds of you making one now are miniscule.

There is so much room in the game development market and everyone wants to do generic fantasy MMOs.

I've said it before. Because they get greedy and have dollar signs in their eyes, and think that IF YOU BUILD IT THEY WILL COME, and it will automagically give them tons of money just because it has the letters MMO. And it will magically only cost them as much as a normal title to develop. And not only will it give them tons of money, but tons of money every single month from the fees, and they never have to worry about money again, and from then on they can be free from publishers and develop their dream projects.

Yeah, that only happens for WoW and its 10 million. And I don't think blizz is free from acti. Everyone else who is wildly successful in that subscription MMO market survives in the hundred thousands range. And at 100k subs, the fees probably only bring in few hundred thousand bucks a month after all the expenses, and that's not counting the initial development costs.

Most of the rest fail miserably, and often take the studios with them. Look at AFB, it was a $100 MILLION mmo project and failed miserably taking the company with it.

I feel bad for them. I hope they can stay operational. Not sure but I don't think I remember them going live, and I'm a frequent BluesNews'er. I'm not sure what sort of PR they did. My free advice - start small, but keep the big vision.